Tangled Up in Christmas Cheer
by smileyfacebabe
Summary: Or the story of how nineteen year old Draco Malfoy spent the Christmas season tangled up in fairy lights and dangling from the roof of 12th Grimmauld Place, which was probably even more dangerous than his decision to join in the Order in the first place. AU from book 6 on.


Author's Note: Another of the Christmas presents I wrote for a friend (my best friend, eek). Sort of Hermione/Draco hintyish but not really. Merry (late) Christmas and enjoy!

Disclaimer: Don't own anything.

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"You want us to _what_?"

Hermione rolled her eyes and sighed loudly through her nose. "I've said it three times already," she said, exasperated. "How many different way to I have to say it before you get it through your thick skulls?"

Ron sputtered, slouching all the way down in his armchair until his spine was nearly parallel with the ground. "But 'Mione, you aren't making any sense," he said, rolling his eyes right back at her. "Honestly, for a brilliant one you're being right dumb about this mess."

"Dumb," Hermione echoed darkly. On the couch to Ron's right Draco and Harry both gulped, their eyes shooting wide open. Fred and George both snickered from the far side of the room, used to their little brother marching himself straight into dangerous situations. "I'm being dumb about this, am I, _Ronald_?"

"Uh," Ron said. He scratched his chin anxiously, shifted his shoulders hastily. "No?"

"You just said I was," she snapped, marching up to tower above him. "I heard you, just as the others in the room did. So why don't you grow a spine and clarify what you're talking about, Ronald; how am I being dumb about this?"

"Well," Ron said, his cheeks flushing with annoyance as all the eyes in the room darted between the young woman who was easily more terrifying than any Death Eater they'd faced during the war and the slouching, flushed young man whose hair was still a little singed from his last run in with Death Eaters. "It just seems a bit mental that you want us to put up all these decorations, by hand mind you, on a house that's gonna disappear from sight the second someone binks. Aren't I right, Harry?"

"Christ, don't pull me into this," Harry muttered, slumping down until his shoulder knocked Draco's. Draco and Harry still didn't get along much, but if there was one thing they could both agree on it was that Hermione's wrath was not something to be trifled with.

"'Arry," Ron yelped, sitting up abruptly so that he could look at his best mate. "You're supposed to have my back!"

"Like hell he's going to have your back, little brother," Fred laughed. "Not when we've all seen 'Mione here take down ten Death Eaters with a single flick of her wand."

"So what, you're just going to do as she says," Ron argued, blustering up so that he could glare at his older brothers. "_You're_ going to put up the fairy lights on the eves of the house that disappears when no one's looking at it, all by hand? Huh?"

Fred and George snorted loudly. "Not by a long shot," they both said together. "We're decorating the inside of the house."

"What," Ron said, looking up at Hermione, who was still glowering down at him. "Why can't I do that?"

"It doesn't take more than two sets of hands to decorate the inside of the house," Hermione told him sharply. "And if you find the idea of decorating the house that terrible, Ronald, you can always join Moody on one of his scouting missions."

Immediately the fight went out from Ron's face. He swallowed thickly, shaking his head side to side rapidly. "No thanks, 'Mione, I'll happily set up as many lights as you want, so long as I don't have to go on another bloody scouting mission with Mad Eye Moody. That blaster bloke almost got my arm blown off last week!"

"I'm glad that's settled," Hermione said, smiling sweetly at the trio of young men sitting in front of her, staring at her like she was their own personal Grim Reaper. "The sooner we get out there the sooner we can be done with this," she informed them, before turning on her heel and marching out of the sitting room's door. "Wands are to be left on the table," she reminded them.

"But what if we get attacked," Draco called at her back. Hermione didn't even bother sending her a glance over her shoulder. Harry stood up, rolling his eyes as he slid his glasses back up his nose.

"Trust me, any Death Eaters stupid enough to try and bother us today are going to get roped into this very mess with us. If that doesn't make them turn tail and run I don't know what will."

"Bloody hell," Ron groaned. "I bloody hate that woman sometimes. You'd have thought the war would have loosened her up a bit, wouldn't ya'?"

"You have a very odd way of looking at war," Draco said dryly. He got up slowly and, with much reluctance, placed his wand on the table by the front door. He had come a long way from the snot nosed brat that had insulted them during their first year of school, but then again the war that had broken out at the end of their six year had changed them all. Draco had shown up on their doorstep, slung over Hermione's shoulder, beaten black and blue, blood dripping from his nose barely three weeks after their sixth year had been finished. They'd been fighting a war ever since and Draco hadn't betrayed them once. The boys hardly even fought anymore, all three finding themselves bossed around by Hermione Granger more than they had when they were at school together. Draco took surprisingly well to the muggle-born's commands, though Remus said it probably had something to do with the way she had swooped in and saved him, dragging him to safety and demanding they keep him safe.

"Come on, Ron," Harry said, dropping his wand down next to Draco's. They knocked shoulders comfortably, both standing by the front door as they waited for Ron. Ron came down the stairs slowly, flanked on both sides by his older brothers, who grinned at them maniacally.

"Have fun," they whispered dramatically. "Don't fall off the ladder or anything!"

"Shove off, you two," Ron said angrily. He stuck his wand in his back pocket pointedly and then shoved past Harry and Draco, opening the front door with a wrench of his wrist. He stomped out into the grey cold of London, Draco and Harry following on his heels. The door shut with something just short of a bang behind them and, for the first time that they could remember, the house didn't disappear back into the building it was made of.

"Well," Hermione said, staring pointedly at the house behind them as she stood next to a ladder. "Are you three going to hurry up and help or wait until you're frozen solid?"

Draco laughed just a little bit under his breath. "Christ," he groaned, running a hand through his pale hair. "I guess I'll climb the ladder, yeah? Potter, you ever put up these things by hand?"

Harry shook his head. "My aunt thought they looked tacky," he said, shrugging. "So we never bothered putting any up, by hand or otherwise. But if you get the right eves of the house I'll get the fence."

"Which leaves Ronald with the left eves of the house," Hermione said, smiling. "Come along then, chop chop."

"Bloody hell," Ron grumbled under his breath. He marched toward the ladder that was standing in front of the left side of the house and climbed it, cursing when it wobbled underneath him. "'Mione, this thing's a right death trap," he shouted, but she just rolled her eyes and ignored him.

"Stop griping, Ronald, and make sure the lights work."

"How are we supposed to do that," Draco wondered. He was already sitting atop his own rickety ladder, the pile of fairy lights sitting in his lap.

"Toss me down the end with the metal prongs," Hermione said, "and I'll charm them with power."

"How come you get to use your wand?"

"Because I'm in charge," Hermione told Ron sharply. "Now hush and find the end of your cord too."

Ron did what he was told, though he grumbled and complained through every second of it. Harry found the end of his fairy lights without any problem, holding them out toward Hermione to enchant. She did so with barely a glance in his direction and his string of brightly colored lights flicked on with a muted _whoosh_. With a long shivering sigh Harry went to work wrapping the multicolored lights around the black metal fence that lined the little yard at 12 Grimmauld Place, London, England. It took Ron and Draco a little over an hour to get all their lights to frame the windows the way Hermione wanted to them. Harry, having finished his task within ten minutes, had then been let loose upon the little tree-bushes that were scattered across the mushy snow-strewn yard, where he then had to coil the colorful lights around them in careful lines. He had finished that ten minutes before Draco and Ron were done, at which point Hermione had produced a set of candy cane lights from her enchanted purse.

"Really," Harry had said, sounding a little bit bewildered. "When did you even buy all this, 'Mione? I was with you the last time you left the house."

"It's Christmas, Harry," Hermione reminded the Chosen Boy primly. "Everyone should have decorations for Christmas, even if we are at war. And I bought them when you were tussling with those three Death Eaters in the alleyway, don't you remember?"

"You're the scariest witch I've ever met," Draco called down to her. He was bent awkwardly over the window sill to the sitting room on the second floor, more than half off his ladder. His cheeks were flushed with the amount of effort he was putting into decorating and he'd tossed his gloves down onto the sidewalk because he dropped the strings of fairy lights more often than not with them on. His gloves probably would have been lost to the yard until spring, but Hermione had scooped them up and pulled them on her own hands without a word, so at least he wasn't down a pair of gloves.

"Thank you," Hermione called up to him, smiling sweetly around the corners of her mouth. "Oh, and Ronald? That string is crooked."

"Your teeth are crooked," Ron snarled back childishly. Hermione ignored him with a roll of her eyes, sighing gustily into the cold air. Her breath burst out of her like a gust of smoke and for a minute they all fancied she looked like a dragon. She was fierce enough to be a dragon, that they were all aware of.

"Alright," she said, once Ron's strings of fairy lights were level enough for Hermione's tastes. "All three of you on the roof now, so we can set up the reindeer and then go inside. I'll even make you hot cocoa."

"I don't want any of your devil drink," Ron grumbled angrily. "Vile slave woman, making me take down and put up the same string of lights for _twenty minutes_."

"_Ronald_," Hermione growled at him. Ron all but flew to the roof, where he stood, hunched in on himself against the cold wind, while Harry and Draco climbed up the ladder.

"Er, 'Mione," Harry said, upon crawling up to the rooftop and searching around for a moment. "Where are the reindeer?"

Hermione blinked at them. "They should be right there," she said. Puzzled, she looked down, checking around her legs for the bags that she thought she'd put on the roof. The second her eyes strayed from the house for longer than a blink it started to shift, a loud creaking noise erupting from underneath the three nineteen year old men. Ron shrieked at the top of his lungs while Draco and Harry teetered in place, arms pin wheeling desperately. The second Hermione realized her mistake her head snapped back up to stare at the house, her face scrunching up as she concentrated everything she could on the thought of 12th Grimmauld Place, London, England. The house immediately stopped trying to retract back into the buildings surrounding it.

"Sorry," she shouted up at them, flushing a pretty pink high up on her cheeks.

"Sorry," Ron shrieked back at her, voice cracking. "She bloody goes and almost gets us crushed atop this stupid house and she says she's _sorry_ about it!" Harry managed to regain his footing without injury, but Draco slipped on a patch of ice just as the house screeched back into sight. With a small yelp Draco's legs slid out from under him and he went tumbling over the edge of the roof.

"Draco," Hermione screamed. Ron and Harry tried to catch him, but all they both managed was to knock into each other and slide feet first into the gutter, which groaned its indignation at being used as a foothold for their survival. Luckily for Draco he fell straight into one of the cords for the fairy lights, which then became tangled in his flailing limbs. Within a minute he was hanging upside down from the three story window, his legs tangled in brightly colorful fairy light, his hands scratched up from the ice on the roof that he'd fought to grab onto, and his face turning more purple by the second.

"Oh my _god_, Draco Malfoy," Hermione said sharply, once it was evident that Draco wasn't going to continue to plummet to his death. "If you ever scare me like that again-"

"If _I _ever scare you like that again," he shouted, trying and failing to twist around so that he could see Hermione. "Granger, it's your bloody fault I almost died in the first place. Get me down from here, before these stupid lights give way and I fall to my death."

"Oh, don't be such a child," Hermione said, fisting her hands on her hips and glaring up at him. "If I let you fall to your death who's going to keep Harry and Ronald from putting up the reindeer in the wrong direction?"

"Oi," Ron shouted, crossing his arms over his chest and glowering down at both Hermione and Draco. "What makes you so sure we'd put up the reindeer in the wrong direction?"

"Do fake reindeer even have a wrong direction," Harry wondered aloud. He was splayed on his back on the roof, hair everywhere, hat missing, scarf barely wrapped around his neck. For a second Hermione felt bad for putting the boys through so much work, but she had crawled all over her own roof as a child to put up fairy lights at Christmas and she was convinced it was an experience everyone needed in their lifetimes at least once.

"Hush, all three of you," she snapped, pulling her wand out of her coat pocket. She flicked her wrist and Draco rose up out of the fairy lights that had saved his life, body twisting in mid air so that his feet landed securely on the roof's tiles. "Now put those reindeer up before anyone else dies. Oh and Ronald? When you're done I need you to straighten the lights Draco fell on."

Ron looked like he was considering arguing for all of ten seconds before he rolled his eyes to the sky and sighed loudly through clenched teeth. "Sure 'Mione," he said. "Just find us those bloody reindeer so we can get those over with."

Hermione frowned at them. "I could have sworn I'd already put them on the roof," she said. She cast quick little glances all over the yard, never long enough for the house to try and disappear again, but she couldn't seem to find the box with the fake reindeer in them anywhere. "Huh," she said eventually, blinking up at the three young men standing on the roof of their enchanted and now decorated secret base, all of whom stared down at her with pink frosted noses and hunched shoulders. "I'm sorry," she said, smiling sheepishly up at them, "but it appears we've lost the reindeer. You might as well come down now."

"Merlin's great beard," Draco grumbled, turning to carefully descend on the ladder that barely reached all the way to the roof of the four story little house. "I'm glad that's over with. Sorry about the lights, Weasley."

Three years ago that would have been a self-satisfied dig, but Draco only sounded sincere and a little bit cold. Ron tried to summon up the anger that once would have been at the tip of his frosty fingers whenever Draco was around, but found in its place an almost-fondness for the blond bloke.

_Blimey_, Ron thought, shrugging at Draco to show he meant no hard feelings. _Luscious would've had a cow had he seen his son now._ The three young men climbed carefully off the roof, though Ron made his sullen way back to the left side, where he went about the task of righting the now crooked lights. Harry and Draco could have gone inside and started the process of defrosting their chilly limbs, but instead they both trooped out to stand on either side of Hermione, who had backtracked until she stood on the curb of the street. Together they admired the view.

"Having fun kids?" Tonks asked as she marched up the street. She was disguised as an old beggar man, wearing frosted rags, her hair short against her forehead and the dirtiest of greys. It never ceased to amaze Draco that Tonks could change her appearance at will, even though he'd grown up surrounded by a constant stream of magic and met several metamorphmagi throughout his childhood. He thought often that it was the amount of spunk Tonks put into her disguises, throwing everything she had into the wobble of the old man's walk, the crack in his voice, and the slang of his word choice.

"Yes we are," Hermione answered the older woman, smiling at her without looking away from the house. "What do you think," she asked Tonks, a little self-consciously. "Do you think it looks alright?"

"The left side is a little crooked," Tonks said, tipping her head to one side, "but the right side looks perfect. I also love the bushes and the candy canes."

"Thanks," Harry said. "I had to redo each bush at least twice before 'Mione was happy with the outcome."

Tonks laughed, her whole body shaking with her mirth. "Sounds like our Hermione," she said, in a way that was fond and kind all at once. Draco's mother and father might have said something similar in a distasteful way, which was one of the reasons he wasn't too put out to be in the Order's side of the war. Ron and his brothers might call him snide names, but they hadn't left him to die like the Death Eaters had and Harry was even occasionally funny, when he wasn't being a sulky rotten prick about his scar.

"Didn't you have reindeer to go on the roof?" Tonks after a minute of companionable silence. Hermione sighed gustily while Harry and Draco rolled their eyes to the grey sky.

"I did, but they've gotten off to somewhere," Hermione said angrily. "You wouldn't happen to have an idea as to where, would you?"

"Not the faintest thought," Tonks said, shaking her head. "Sorry, 'Mione."

"I'm done," Ron announced loudly, stomping away from the ladder he had just climbed down. His lights were still a little bit crooked, but after a long moment of pursing her lips Hermione sighed and let it go.

"Nicely done, Ronald," she said, giving the young man a small smile. "Shall we go inside for cocoa then?"

"Oooh," Tonks said, clapping her withered hands together excitedly. "I'd love some cocoa!" She curled her arm through Hermione's and marched straight up the path, leaving Harry and Draco to trail lazily in their wake. Ron joined them as they reached the front door and all five of them slipped inside, trying to keep the door as shut as possible so that all the heat didn't slink out. They were three steps down the hallway toward the kitchen when they abruptly found out what had happened to the reindeer.

"Look out," Fred shouted. He was sitting atop one of the fake light up reindeer, whose lights where gleaming brightly in the dim of the creaky old Black house. The reindeer was flying through the air, straight toward the five shivering people who had just come in from the cold, and with a shriek they all fell to the ground, desperately to avoid getting a fake hoof in the face. Immediately the paintings within the hallway woke up, Sirius Black's mother shrieking insults at the garbage that had taken up residence in her house and decorated it with uggle contraptions. Hot on Fred's tail was George, who was also riding a fake light up reindeer, though his hands were full of tinsel where as Fred's had been full of popcorn strings.

"_Fred_," Hermione shrieked at the first man as he took a corner up the stairs and disappeared out of sight. _"George_; _both of you get back down here right this instant!_"

Sirius's mother continued to rally at the "mudblood filth mucking up her home, how _dare they_" while Fred and George's laughter filled the air above them. Tonks let out a snort as rough and un-ladylike as a wild boar's before turning to silence the paintings with a flick of her wand. "Hush you lot," she scolded them cheerfully, her old man's disguise receding until her hair was only again pink as a house elf's tongue and her eyes were a vibrant turquoise instead of brown.

"Oh, I'm going to tell Molly the second she gets back," Hermione grouched, storming down the hall and into the kitchen. In Fred and George's defense the house did seem to be neatly decorated; there was tinsel all down the hallway, wrapped around each frame of the many, many paintings that spanned the walls, and all across the ceiling of the kitchen were popcorn strings, held aloft with little glimmering bells. Draco peeked in the main living room as they trudged past it and found that a mammoth sized tree was even up, though it was naked except for its pine needles.

"Why isn't the tree decorated," he asked aloud. The twins had almost every room in the house bugged with their little listening devices, so he didn't bother waiting for them to reappear so that he could ask them. Sure enough they were back in the room without a few seconds, both still atop their fake steeds. They hovered just out of reach above Hermione's head and she glowered at them, looking so much like McGonagall for a moment that Draco thought about snickering. Harry beat him to it though, quirking the barest of grins and nudging Ron in the side, muttering _god, doesn't she look like Professor McGonagall_ out of the corner of her mouth. Draco grinned despite the war and himself, finding the bright Christmas cheer staring down at him from every direction to be too much to fight.

"We thought you all might want to give us a hand with the tree," one twin said. Draco thought it was Fred, but unknown to the blond Harry thought it was George.

"And if you didn't, we figured the adults might like to help out a little," the other continued. Ron was nearly positive that one was George, but Tonks was willing to bet money on it being Fred.

"Yeah, we didn't want to hog all the Christmas spirit here!"

"But _why_ have you enchanted the reindeer to fly," Hermione sputtered, fisting her hands on her hips. Her hair was a wet tangled mess of snow kissed curled, sticking to her cheeks where her scarf didn't cover her skin. She pulled off Draco's gloves one by one and shoved them deep into her coat pocket, where she was likely to keep them until Draco stole them back. Draco didn't mind so much, so he didn't say anything. Granger probably needed the gloves to stay warm more than he did anyway.

"Well," one twin started with a grin. "Just enchanting the string to float to the ceiling and stick didn't seem like much fun. So we thought why not give Santa's style a try, eh? Fly on up on a couple of reindeer and give it a real Christmas go. I think we did alright, don't you?"

Tonks laughed, louder than she had before, her entire body rippling with the mirth. Draco found himself snorting along, Harry's shoulders knocking into his own as they both shook with quiet snickers. Ron even rolled his eyes and cracked a grin at the twin's antics, though the real miracle was when Hermione broke, a grin slipping over her cracked lips as well.

"If those reindeer aren't on the roof by the time your mother comes home," Hermione threatened quietly. She didn't end the threat, but she didn't really need to. Fed and George saluted her with good natured cheer before flying off on their bewitched light up reindeer, presumably to decorate the rest of the house as well. Draco settled into a seat at the kitchen table, Tonks at his side and Harry across from him. Ron took the seat next to Harry, his limbs sprawling liberally across the scarred wood top as he all but melted into the wood.

"Are you going to make us some hot cocoa or not?" he asked Hermione, rolling his eyes with a great deal of dramatic flair. "After all that fuss and hard work and you're not even keeping up with your end of the bargain!"

Hermione flicked him in the ear with the edge of her fingernail, making him flinch and howl. "Oh be quiet, Ronald," she said, grinning as she pulled her coat from her shoulders and draped it along the back of the chair Draco was sitting it. "I'll get to making your hot cocoa as soon as you stop fussing."

"We'll be here all year then," Draco grumbled mockingly, not even bothering to keep his voice down. Hermione laughed, but Ron turned his head to glower at the blond.

"Shove off, Draco," Ron said, kicking the other man's shin lightly under the table. "Or I'm going to tell Mum that you know all the Christmas carols by heart. She'll make you go caroling with her, you just watch out."

Draco blinked. "Caroling," he said, utterly confused. "We're in the middle of a war, I'm not sure anyone has time for caroling."

"Mum'll make time," Ron promised, grinning darkly. "So you better be careful."

"I'm terrified out of my mind," Draco promised drolly.

Fred and George ended up in heap of trouble for the enchanted reindeer, not that Mrs. Weasley's scowl lasted long. In fact the entire house seemed to be beaming upon their arrival from their different missions over the next week, each of their shoulders relaxing just a fraction more as they took in each brightly decorated nook and cranny and the tree that was slowly filling up with glass orbs and candy canes. Though the candy canes kept disappearing, partially due to Ginny's almost unrivaled sweet tooth, but occasionally helped along by Draco's own love of peppermint. Draco hadn't seen so many smiled in one place since the war had begun and he couldn't find it in himself to grumble darkly about the ridiculous turn his life had taken, even when he ended up standing out in three feet on snow, gloveless, shivering, and singing carols with a group of tone deaf wizards.


End file.
